Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has rattled academia and legal experts with his open declaration that his state is \u201ctargeting professors\u201d over their personal beliefs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Republican governors have increasingly seen classrooms as ideological battlegrounds, Abbott\u2019s stated position<\/a> that a Texas educator should have lost his job over \u201cideological differences\u201d is raising greater concern among experts, especially those who say concerning trends on\u00a0First Amendment rights at universities in the state have been compounding for years and\u00a0accelerated\u00a0under the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n Abbott\u2019s post on social media<\/a> was inspired by the\u00a0ouster\u00a0of\u00a0Art Markman, a tenured psychology professor at the University of Texas, from\u00a0his\u00a0administrative\u00a0role\u00a0in academic affairs, though not apparently his teaching position.<\/p>\n Markman posted on\u00a0LinkedIn\u00a0the dismissal was due to \u201cideological differences\u201d but did not further elaborate.\u00a0The Hill\u00a0has reached out to the university for\u00a0comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUniv. of Texas professor was dismissed from an administrative post overseeing university academic affairs because of ideological differences,\u201d Abbott wrote, echoing the language of an Axios article he shared<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cTexas is targeting professors who are more focused on pushing leftist ideologies rather than preparing students to lead our nation. We must end indoctrination and return to education fundamentals at all levels of education,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Academics say they no longer know what will be permissible\u00a0on Texas campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re losing faculty that are leaving, moving to other states because\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0lost shared governance, or\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0lost academic freedom, or they feel intimidated\u00a0\u2014 can\u2019t\u00a0speak truth to what their knowledge is in their field. Members are joining advocacy groups left and\u00a0right because\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0afraid.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0afraid in the classroom,\u201d said\u00a0Pat Heintzelman, president of the Texas Faculty\u00a0Association.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas has been at the forefront of efforts to revamp higher education institutions\u00a0and root out topics Republicans oppose nationwide.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Diversity,\u00a0equity\u00a0and inclusion (DEI) offices have been banned<\/a> at state\u00a0universities,\u00a0and a law was passed to crackdown on campus protests<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n A professor at\u00a0Texas A&M University\u00a0was recently fired after asking a student to leave the class who challenged her teaching about gender identities, alleging the professor was breaking the law.\u00a0In the ensuing controversy<\/a>, the president of A&M also resigned.<\/p>\n \u201cThis tweet was bad, but it\u2019s worse because of all the things that have been happening in Texas over the last, frankly, couple of years, but especially even the last few months,\u201d\u00a0said Lindsie Rank, director of Campus Rights Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been multiple instances of Texas professors facing pushback for their speech, and so, I think, it\u2019s kind of in some ways helpful that\u00a0Abbott said\u00a0out loud the part that usually is quiet,\u201d she added. \u201cIt, I guess, reinforces, for me, what\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0been seeing happening, which is professors on the left being targeted in Texas specifically.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Angelo State University has sought to stay ahead of the state by\u00a0banning LGBTQ content<\/a> in classrooms and declaring that students can only be referred to by their legal name.\u00a0<\/p>\n